September is when the Gulf Coast table starts getting interesting again. Two big food-and-music events land on the same Saturday, a handful of new dining rooms have opened over the summer, and a couple more are on the way worth knowing about. Here is my fall dining radar, straight from someone who lives and eats on this corridor.
A Food & Wine Afternoon at the Opera House
On Saturday, September 26, the Sarasota Opera Food & Wine Festival returns to the Opera House at 61 North Pineapple Avenue in downtown Sarasota. General admission starts at 1 p.m. and gets you food samples from a whole range of area kitchens plus wine tastings, with tickets in advance for around $75 and a VIP hour for early entry. Proceeds go to the Sarasota Youth Opera, which makes it an easy yes in my book.
My move: take the morning slowly, tour one of the West of Trail or Bayfront neighborhoods, then walk to the festival and finish the afternoon drifting down Main Street, which puts you within easy reach of the dining guide favorites for dinner.
Venice Beach Party: a Farewell to Summer
The same Saturday, Venice closes out summer its own way. The Venice Beach Party runs 1 to 6 p.m. at Venice Beach at the end of Esplanade South, with live music, food trucks, beer, wine and specialty drinks, and a free trolley running from Centennial Park so parking is painless. My two dogs and I are easy to spot on the beach side of these things, and if you are looking at Venice neighborhoods, it is a perfect excuse to spend the day on the water and then see a few homes the next morning.
The New Dining Rooms I'm Watching
The summer brought some real additions to the area. Wings Etc. Grill & Pub opened in Venice on North U.S. 41 Bypass, and Capriotti's Sandwich Shop planted itself at 6320 South Tamiami Trail, an easy pickup on the drive up the coast. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune's summer roundup covered both, and they have already worked their way into my rotation.
The bigger watch list: Olivia, a modern Italian trattoria, and On Swann, a contemporary American restaurant, both from James Beard-nominated chef Chris Ponte, are headed to University Town Center. For anyone buying on the Lakewood Ranch or northern Sarasota side, that is a dining marker worth putting in your pro-con column, and it pushes the trip up University Parkway from Palmer Ranch to a fifteen-minute drive on a good day.
My Weekend Game Plan
Here is how I would play that last Saturday of September: late-morning Legacy Trail ride from Palmer Ranch, the Food & Wine Festival downtown in the afternoon, or the Venice Beach party if you vote beach over opera, then dinner and a waterfront sunset somewhere on Sarasota Bay. If you are weighing homes at the same time, the two neighborhoods pages on this site, Venice and Sarasota, cover what each commute now and stroll later looks like.
Want me to tailor a route to your tastes? Send me a note, tell me what you like to eat, and I'll point you at the neighborhoods that put the best tables within reach.